And perhaps that had been the biggest factor of all: this underlying bitterness at the fact that her supposed best friend was keeping all these secrets from her. Resentment at not being included. Jealousy, this ugly, vicious beast that weighed shamefully on her now.
All she knew was that she’d gone after her in those caves despite every bone in her body protesting at the rashness of it all.
Emory remembered her labored breathing and erratic heartbeat as she wound deeper through the network of caverns, remembered standing transfixed at the mouth of the Belly of the Beast, watching as Romie and the others stepped onto the natural platform at the center of the vast grotto. There, a giant stalactite and an equally large stalagmite reached toward each other, linked by a fragile thread, like an hourglass that had withstood the tides’ whims since the beginning of time. Water trickled down the length of it, the wet rock striated with veins of silver, and at the base of the stalagmite was a great spiral carved in the stone, the ancient symbol resembling a conch, or a wave curling in on itself. Silver flowed toward it, hugging its curve like the deliberate brushstroke of some long-forgotten drowned god.
Lia Azula, a Waxing Moon student, had walked up to it as if in a trance. “I can’t believe it’s actually real,” she’d muttered, reverentially stroking the stone.
Her twin, Dania, had huffed. “I don’t think it was ever a question of whether the Hourglass was real or not but whether it can actually do what it’s supposed to.”
“So let’s get on with it.” This from Quince Travers, who’d been glancing impatiently at his watch, a greenish tint to his pale face. “Who knows how long we have left.”
“Relax, there’s like six hours between low and high tides,” Jordyn had laughed, hitting Travers hard on the back. “We’re swimming in time, Travy.”
“The only thing we’ll be swimming in is the tide that’s going to kill us all when it comes in quicker than expected,” Travers bit back. “This place messes with time. And don’t call me Travy, jerk.”
“Ass.”
“Boys,” Romie had warned loudly, extending her arms between the two of them. “If you’re quite finished, we have a ritual to perform. You can keep bickering like an old married couple once we’re out of here and everyone’s drunk enough to tolerate you. Got it?”
Romie’s tone had caught Emory off guard. Here was the Romie she knew and loved, with the snark and take-charge attitude that had disappeared the more secretive she’d grown. Still, Emory knew her well enough to notice the underlying tension in her words, the set of her jaw.
Romie was nervous—which could only mean something far more sinister was at work here.
The eight of them formed a circle around the rock, a perfectly unbroken cycle of the moon’s phases: Travers and Serena of House New Moon, Dania and Lia of House Waxing Moon, Daphné and Jordyn of House Full Moon, and Harlow and Romie of House Waning Moon. Each of them had produced a knife and sliced across their right palm, and there was nothing Emory could do but watch, biting down hard on her lip, as blood dripped down their hands. In unison, the students stepped forward and brought their bloodied hands flush against the rock, intoning what sounded like a prayer.
“To Bruma, who sprang from the darkness. To Anima, whose voice breathed life into the world. To Aestas, whose bountiful warmth and light protect us all. To Quies and the sleeping darkness she guides us through at the end of all things.”
For a second, or perhaps a minute or an hour, nothing happened.
Then something changed in the air, as if all the dampness in the grotto ceased to exist. The metallic hues lining the rock came to life. They pulsated with bright light, running up and down the length of the formation like rippling sand, the reflection of moonlight over water. Droplets of silver detached from the rock and hovered just above its surface like raindrops frozen in time.
In the dead silence, a faint whisper rose, making the hairs on the back of Emory’s neck stand. It beckoned her forward, as if the rock called to her. The others didn’t see her as she stepped onto the platform and picked up a discarded knife to slash her own palm, nor as she wedged herself between Romie and Travers and pressed her hand against the rock.
A tendril of silver mixed with the blood that pooled from her wound. It wrapped around her wrist, tethering her to the rock, and it was the cold of a thousand stars and the deepest of oceans, flaring like a brand so painful it brought tears to her eyes, tore a soundless scream from her throat.
Something prickled against her magic, and bright silver light flooded the Belly of the Beast.
Someone screamed.
Emory tried to wrench her hand from the rock but was rooted to it, to that burning cold liquid searing her skin.
Then all at once the light vanished, and Emory brought her trembling hand up to her face, blinking at the silver spiral inked on her blood-streaked wrist, a mirror image of the glyph on the rock, still aglow with its strange light.
Romie stood before her, eyes wide with terror, an identical spiral on her own wrist. “Em,” she breathed, voice raw, “what the fuck are you doing here?”
Everyone stared at her, and for a moment the cave was deathly quiet.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Travers said at last, a look of horror on his face. “What if it messed up the ritual?”
An echo of that earlier whisper was the only warning before another sound rose in the depths: a great, deafening roar as the rising tide rushed in.
Time had slipped away from them, and the tide seized its opportunity. Hysteria crested over them before the water did. Someone swore, another burst into tears, and a few had the good sense to scramble to the nearest puddle to try to call on their magic through bloodletting. Romie simply looked at Emory, mouth open on words that were drowned by the roaring of the tide.
And then:
Darkness. A sea of swirling stars. Emory’s name whispered in the night, and those spirals bleeding black on the corpses on the sand.
And Keiran. Keiran, who was the first to find her on the beach in the dead of night. Keiran, who had the same mark they’d gotten in the caves. Keiran, who looked at her now with brows slightly furrowed, as if he could see the memories running through her mind. Beside him, Virgil and Lizaveta watched her intently, waiting for her answer.
Why had she gone into those caves? How had she survived what others more magically gifted than her had not?
Even if she could explain it—if she remembered what happened once the sea rushed in, how she’d ended up on the beach with four corpses strewn around her, the other four lost to the churning depths of Dovermere—it wouldn’t matter. The only thing anyone wanted from her, the reason all these students kept stealing glances her way, was a good story. A way to build up the myth and mystery surrounding Dovermere.
Emory knew what Romie would do in her place: if people suspected there was more to the story, she would gladly let them make their assumptions, would feast on their curiosity and let it mold her into an enigma everyone wanted to solve. Perhaps that was exactly what Emory needed to do. Let them believe what they would. The truth remained a mystery even to her, and she owed no one the slivers of knowledge she did have. Those fragments were her only bargaining chip to be used when it counted.